One of the most important things I do in my practice...

Hint: it's the reason for the season

What happened to American medicine?

I'll tell you.

“No man can serve two masters. For either he shall hate the one, and love the other, or else he shall lean to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and riches.”

- Matthew 6:24

American medicine has been sold out.

The first consequence of selling out?

You stop serving God and you start serving something else.

Hospitals now have a chaplain merely to console those who are suffering.

This is a catastrophic mistake.

The chaplain, pastor, priest - whatever name he goes by - does not exist to console you.

He is supposed to get you to come to Jesus about who and what you're really serving in your life.

What does that mean?

Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear.

- Hippocrates

The Greek word, "sin," technically refers to the distance below the target that a projectile (arrow, spear, etc.) ultimately falls or strikes. This is why we call a "sin" function a sin wave - it forms a wave function around a straight line.

We all fall short of the mark, and when illnesses appear, it is because we have fallen short of the mark enough times with regard to what we must do to maintain our physical bodies that illnesses have now appeared.

Not unlike credit cards being canceled, mortgages being foreclosed, memberships being terminated, or subscriptions going unfulfilled, our diseases emerge from our bodies when our physiological resources are no longer adequate to cover the material and energetic debts we have imposed on them.

These debts take many forms, from manganese to magnesium, from pyridoxine to pantothenate, from protein to carbohydrates, and on and on.

Modern medical schools hammer into their students that the body is a machine, whose secrets defy description by mere reductionism.

The truth is that people are not just machines. People have souls, spirits, feelings, instincts, emotions - immaterial dimensions that defy our best efforts to quantify, predict, or even begin to understand.

When diseases emerge, there is invariably an element of "sin" in the picture. I am not necessarily talking about "sin" that might find its way onto a tabloid cover or gossip column.

I am talking about falling short of the mark in mundane and unremarkable ways.

Most people struggling with falling short of any mark are truly struggling with how they feel, based on how they treat themselves and on how others treat them.

They often tell me things like:

• They don't feel heard.

• They don't feel seen.

• They don't feel loved.

• They don't feel safe.

• They don't feel fulfilled.

• They don't feel calm.

• They don't feel rested.

• They don't feel needed.

• They don't feel wanted.

• They don't feel cared for.

Many of them have been struggling with such overwhelmingly negative feelings for so long, that they have lost touch with how they feel altogether. They feel like they are just, "existing." They describe feelings of emptiness, loneliness, anxiety, depression, fear, guilt, shame, and more.

Do me a favor.

Don't let it get that bad before you apply for consultation. It's heartbreaking to see how bad it has to get for many people before they go ahead and get started with us.

What does this have to do with who you are serving?

If you're too nice, you're liable to wind up serving people who don't appreciate you.

Much of the world's population is stuck in this position. "Nice" does not necessarily mean kind. Being a doormat might be a better descriptor. Sadly, it's hard to see a way out of serving people who treat you badly sometimes.

This is why I’m so passionate about teaching people about narcissistic personality disorder, which I recorded webinars on here and here.

If someone is being mean, selfish, or unkind, it's only because they've been treated badly by those who should have treated them best. Beneath the surface, they're struggling with deep wounds of abandonment and betrayal. And they're likely to turn people who are nice into people who are as mean and broken as they are.

People cope with these feelings by drowning or indulging them.

Someone who doesn't feel fulfilled by their job might drown those feelings with pleasure or pain. They might hit the gym, the bottle, the fridge, the drugs, the punching bag, the brothel (or pornographic website), or their preferred purveyor of social media.

People who don't feel fulfilled by their relationships might drown those feelings in fake, superficial relationships that are based on pleasure, rather than purpose. Deep and genuine connection frightens them, often into behavior they are later ashamed of. This creates a terrible cycle that they may struggle to escape from.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Sometimes, pleasure isn't a person's indulgence of choice.

Some people like to indulge in causing pain.

Some people find pleasure in taking out their contempt and frustration on someone or something who can't do anything about it.

If they're feeling angry or frustrated by their job, they may take it out on their spouse.

If they're feeling angry at their spouse, they might take it out on their kids.

If they're feeling angry at their lack of success, they might take it out on their employees, co-workers, or ancillary staff.

If they're really low in the social pecking order, they can take out those feelings on a poor, defenseless animal.

I don't like to talk about this kind of thing.

It's unpleasant to confront these aspects of human nature, in part because we are all susceptible to bad behavior, and everyone with an iota of self-awareness will at some point be able to reflect on their life and say, "I'm ashamed that I did that. I feel guilty about it."

It's important to remember that most of the things you'll find up regretting, you were set up to do by your past experiences.

And that's another reason people struggle to confront these things - there is a real question to what degree we are in control of ourselves, and to what degree society, our past, and our present circumstances that are beyond our control, determine our choices.

These emotional issues often present themselves as the root of a patient's medical problem.

Their failure to escape these cycles of self-destruction, cycle that are ultimately driven by unresolved emotional issues, is the real problem.

Not their sugar addiction.

Not their parasites.

Not their mineral or vitamin deficiencies.

Nor any of the other hundred and one problems I can identify in the average case.

It all comes back to why you're making the choices you're making.

And much of that comes back to how you feel.

This is why marketers spend a LOT more time talking about and figuring out how people feel. They know that you’ll think of a way to justify doing what you feel like doing.

My job is to get you to do what’s good for you, even when you don’t feel like doing it.

I seek to help my patients find perspective on why they feel how they feel, and how to resolve those unresolved feelings.

That's what the "come to Jesus" talk is all about.

There are few vestiges of Christianity left in most modern hospitals.

One of them is the, "come to Jesus talk." This was typically employed in the context of a "frequent flier" - a patient who was constantly in and out of the hospital.

The alcoholic who can't stay off the bottle.

The drug addict who can't stay clean.

We had one patient who wouldn't stop swallowing sharp objects. Lightbulbs. Safety pins. Razor blades.

I kid you not. The levels of human depravity on display in the average American hospital now rival anything from history.

Should we be surprised? Or has it always been this way?

The "come to Jesus" talk is supposed to motivate someone to start over, to change their ways, and to become a better person.

This process of self-improvement is the bedrock of social progress. Without it, everything fails. Which would explain why everything seems to be failing us here in the "modern" world.

Sadly, the "come to Jesus" talk rarely works in modern medicine, in part (I believe) because doctors today have no faith. It is done peremptorily by most physicians, if they bother to have this conversation at all. They have been taught not to have faith in anything but biochemistry and anatomy. They have been taught to pin their hopes on drugs, and nothing else.

Which is a shame. Because the power of prayer can be transformative. And I believe in it far more than any pill I have ever recommended.

The healing power of prayer is not even a matter of conjecture. It is a matter of scientifically proven and validated fact.

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers—and it was not there. . . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests—and it was not there. . . . .in her rich mines and her vast world commerce—and it was not there. . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. - Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” (cited here).

I mentioned perspective earlier.

Often, the best thing I can do for my patients is give them a different perspective on their illness and their life.

• What are they living for?

• What matters to them?

• What's truly important to them in life?

Too many people spend their lives chasing things that other people have decided are important.

Focus on what is important to you.

To determine what is important to you, you have to be in touch with your feelings.

To be in touch with your feelings, you often have to process old feelings from events that are still haunting you.

This is why I'm a big fan of neurofeedback and EMDR therapy, and why I wrote this post about mind-body medicine:

Essentials of Mind-Body Medicine

This is why I love getting advanced nutritional testing in my practice. This type of testing allows me to customize supplement protocols for patients, and when we optimize their nutrition, we optimize their physiology. When we do that, we often find that they naturally start to transform their social and emotional lives for the better. We received three testimonials to this in one night in our HTMA course the other week!

I've got a post coming up on how neurofeedback and bigger and better nutritional protocols transformed my life this past summer - stay tuned for that.

Optimizing our brain function with neurofeedback and EMDR, and our health in general with proper nutrition and lifestyle, is the key to remaining focused on what matters most in life.

And you don't want to get distracted from that.

Because it can all be snatched away in an instant.

If you're not careful, it will be.

Most people worry about their bad habits. Their "sins."

I hope I've impressed upon you that your bad habits are just the logical consequence of not focusing on the right things. Of not living for what matters most to you.

So this Christmas, I'd like you to ask yourself:

• Who am I serving?

• What am I serving?

• Is this making me happy, healthy, and free, or do I feel like a slave to my paycheck, my spouse, my kids, my parents, my mortgage, my passions, my pleasures, or my pain?

“And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free.”

- John 8:32

I promised I would tell you one of the most important things I do in my practice in the title to this now very long and rambling post.

I pray. I pray every single day for clarity on the things I’ve written about here for myself, my family, my friends, and, of course, my patients. And I'm convinced it makes a world of difference. I pray that all of you will gain the perspective you need to create the life that's best for you in the coming months and years.

Merry Christmas, and until next time, be well,

Dr. Stillman